


Wings

by TycoonTwister



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fae!Percival, Gen, Post-Grindelwald, Protective!Aurors, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TycoonTwister/pseuds/TycoonTwister
Summary: Ben Delgado - Auror in training, certified bad boy of the department, and Director Graves's unexpected pupil - and his fellow officers learn some shocking truths about their boss after his rescue from Grindelwald's horrorific captivity.Nothing will ever be the same. Adjusting hurts.But what if it means things can be better than before, too?From a prompt on Tumblr.





	Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for August's last week (I know, I know, don't judge me) in the wonderful Fantastic Beasts Calendar. A love letter to buddy cop movies dynamics and to my Auror OCs, who have grown on me like bubblegum stuck to your soles.

**Wings**

****

“Merlin’s sweet ass,” Delgado said a couple days later - sinking in his desk chair, hands grabbing at his cup of very bad coffee, the sunken eyes of the rest of the Aurors drifting to him. “I never saw it. Merlin, I would never-” 

“Same,” Tina said from her perch on the windowsill: the glass panes gaping on New York’s snow-encrusted streets. Three days later, the warehouse grim still coated the underside of her nails. “But it doesn’t surprise me. We haven’t been particularly good at seeing things lately.” 

The words were blunt - hitting them in the jaw like a mean suckerpunch. Ben Delgado even brought one hand to his cheek, a phantom ache thrumming all the way his teeth. 

He looked at his friend, pale against the soft glow of the enchanted windows, coiled tight like a cat. He was glad to have her back: but he didn’t delude himself into ignoring the new rawness in her face and her words, the cloud of potential danger cloying the air around her like ozone. Tina – stuttering, stressed-out Tina – has been the one who took the brunt of that bleached bastard’s revenge: she had been the one confined to Wands permit for months, with bile on her tongue and her badge rattling in a desk drawer, and the one who stood there, in the underground belly of their city, as the Brit boy’s magic peeled away their boss’s face off Grindelwald’s skin and a demon tore New York apart over their heads. 

She had been there when they found _him_. But that time Ben had been there, too, and that particular horror was a scar he could understand, for a change. 

“I can’t believe it,” Han piped in. She was pacing across the room, munching on her lacquered nails. The President had kicked them out of the hospital ward two hours ago, reminding them there were reports to fill and paperwork to work through - but none of them was even pretending they would get anything done. They were merely counting down the minutes to the evening, to the next visiting window. The ticking of the clock arms twitching under their skin. “I mean, I knew he had Fae blood - everyone knows about that, the medieval Graves chieftain who married an Unseelie princess, their children gifted with beauty and cleverness and all that jazz. But this… ” 

She trailed off. Put a hand against her mouth. 

This. The sheer weight of _this_ slammed into Ben, a brutal blow across the sternum - nearly and brutal as Tina’s punch-words. He saw flashes of the last week, streaming like a flurry of grainy newspaper shots: the Scamander boy’s hounds clawing at the concrete floor of a warehouse after days of frantic research; smell of old blood and sweat and musty magic; iron shackles hanging from the wall. The Healers bringing _him_ out, in the sulphurous glow of their wands - long, spidery fingers clutching at the coat of Doctor Greyson, a quilted cloak wrapped around the mess on his back. _C’mon, Percival. You’re safe. You’re safe._ The ferocious white of the hospital room, and his parents sitting at the bedside, crying silently, wrapped around each other like brambles. And those wings, Gods, damned _wings_ , Ben never knew they- 

Ben felt the pinching of an incoming migraine tug at the front of his skull. He suddenly craved a good shot of firewhiskey. Two, maybe. 

“He’s so young.” The voice was so soft and shaky it took him half a minute to realize it was his own. _Merlin, did he really sound so tired - so bone-deep tired?_ “I’ve worked with him for seven years, he’s been my mentor, and I never. I.” 

Ben’s words curdle on his tongue. 

Ben didn’t know Fae wings could be glamored away. He didn’t know they couldn’t be regrown once severed, either. 

He shot to his feet, because if he didn’t do it now, he was quite certain he would never be able to move again. The suddenness of it rippled across the room like tidal waves, tear-stained faces whipping up, sharp intakes of breath. 

“Listen up, people,” Ben said, to the room full of grieving Aurors, to the memories hanging there, to the empty desk chair in the locked office at the end of the hallway. He realized he was channeling him, his inner Graves, but didn’t let it crack him open just yet. “I’ll say it just this one time. When the boss comes back, we’re going to look after him. Brutally. Efficiently. I’m talking keeping tabs on who comes to see him and who doesn’t. I’m talking making sure he makes home safe at night, and that he eats well and doesn’t work through more than one pot of coffee a day, and that he doesn’t have to stay here to wrap up our shit because we’re too dumb to do that ourselves.” He tapped each point against the edge of his desk - _thud, thud, thud_. The cracks were gaping open, the taste of tears building in the back of his throat, but Ben went on. _Thud_. “I won’t have anything like that crap happen ever again. If you disagree, or if you’re not more than ready to straight up start shit if we get the slightest suspicion the bleached fucker is at it again, then that’s the door. Is that clear?” 

More faces are staring at him, now. From her corner, Tina is uncurling in a soundless motion, eyes a bare blade pressed against his throat. It was the first time Ben made a speech like this, that he realized what it means to step up and call on the attention of a whole room – what it means to be the center of the storm, of every expectation, every hope. The weight was terrible, crushing. He felt it on each knob of his spine, and his mind jumped to what Mister Graves told him years ago, when he was a cynical twenty-year-old idiot who thought of nothing but being heroic and dandy and crying about unlucky flings: that authority has a way to sneak upon people, and makes them into what it needs in that moment, willing or not. 

“You think he’s coming back?” Han asked. She sounded scared, snagged somewhere between hopeful and terrified. Her lovely makeup had left rivers of purple glitter on her cheeks. “I mean, after everything he went through \- considering what he, what he is. I’m not sure his folk will ever let him-” 

“He’s Percival Graves,” Ben cut her off. “He’ll come back. As soon as he can drag himself out of the bed and hold a wand well enough to curse the fuck out of Grindelwald’s minions, he’ll be back.” 

Ben was sure of it. He was as sure of it as he was of his heart giving a beat after the other, as sure he was the Earth would keep spinning another day and that New York’s skyline wopuld stay unfalteringly, unfairly beautiful. More than that, probably. 

His friends shared looks. Some lit up cigarettes, some swore under their breath, curses soft as prayers. Tina’s eyes were still trailed on Ben, but the pressure of the blade was easing up. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw her give a nod. 

_Approval._

Ben decided it was all he needed. 

*** 

Ben had always worn his bad boy skin with care, stitching up sudden gaps and adjusting it on his shoulders like a good coat. 

It wasn’t completely phony, either: to a certain extent, it was the pure truth. He did love women and parties, the game of flirting and courting - even if he sucked at it, dramatically and exhilaratingly; he loved playing quodpot with the Auror team and spending week nights smoking cinnamon cigarettes and playing cards in dingy speakeasies. The bad boy attitude proved excellent for his profession, too: people tend to talk too much when they think you’re nothing but a dumb jock, sure their words would flow right through your empty skull and pour out of it like water in a cracked glass. 

Except they didn’t, of course. Ben wasn’t a scholar, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He had always seen a great deal more than he let people realize: the sneers of older boys at a Wampus prefect with the skin of the laborers moving from the red dust of Mexico, the distaste with which they looked at his mother’s rough hands and at the altar tucked away in their house: at the serpent gods who granted his ancestors their magic, thick and rich as dark earth. 

Ben may not have been a perfect student, but he was curious as hell, and by his ninth birthday, absolutely fucking determined to show them. He wasn’t sure yet how, exactly, but show them. So he learned - learned _everything_ , the rules of Europe’s stony magic and the Serpent God’s prayers, and how to kick those boys’ asses in their duels, and how to steal their girls and their awards; he learned how to punch them hard enough to make their washed-blue eyes swollen and sunken, too. 

If the world wanted to believe Ben Delgado was nothing but a jock, that he had never read a book of History of Magic in his life, so be it: he would still show them. 

Unfortunately, Percival Graves immediately saw through his carefully-tailored skin. He saw through his dumb jokes, through his sloppy reports and perpetually rumpled ties, and saw someone born to this job, and much to Ben’s chagrin, someone he had every intention of pushing to be their best possible self. 

Painfully. 

He had never forgotten that day. Graves sitting in his ugly ebony chair, arms crossed against the complicated silk vest-thing he was wearing - considering Ben and the black eye he got himself during a shootout with a vile child kidnapper down at the docks. _You’re going to be such a pain in the ass, Delgado,_ he had told him, matter-of-factly. _But I like you. I’m not gonna lie: I’m gonna work you to the ground, boy, and kick your ass so frequently and so hard you’ll beg the President to put you to toilet-cleaning duty, till I’ll crack you open and let the damn formidable Auror you can be out._

Mister Graves hadn’t asked him if he understood everything - or if he was agreeing to it. Instead, he had flicked one of those dainty hands of his, and floated a book off his shelf and on his desk. 

_This is your training. And we’re starting now._

The volume was blue-covered, and as thick as Ben’s forearm. The title - _Fairies: Society and Anatomy of the Little Folk_ – was engraved in fancy gilded letters on the cover. Graves had wanted it read and reviewed with a ten-page essay for the next Monday, and the damn thing had nearly shattered Ben’s rickety bed when he had dumped it on it. 

The evening they found Percival Graves in a hole in the ground and rushed him to the Macusa’s hospital in a madness of Healer white coats and silver alarm magic, that memory burned in Ben’s head for the whole time. He remembered the nights he spent pouring over the book: the way its words had clung to the tendrils of his memory and never let go. He thought of the illustrations in it: the fairies lean and sharp-edged, slanted eyes and pointed ears, and wings flaring out of their shoulders, folded like dragonflies’. 

Like the body they pulled out of the hole. Which was Graves, of course, _his_ Graves, their Graves, but was one of those lean sharp things, too. Too many joints in his hands, skin glowing like sunlight seen through a fistful of roses. And wings, gods save us all, wings sporting from his shoulder blades, and ripped around the edges: twig-thin bones bent out of shape, leaking an ichor as clear as spring sap. 

Ben watched Theseus Scamander, hero of England, scoop up Mister Graves’s body – the wet weight of those wings trembling against his coat – and he remembered the chapters explaining the anatomy of wings and bones, the forest of nerves sewing fairy wings together. He felt faint at the realization of how much it must hurt. For a long, blissful moment, for the whole time it took them to bring Mister Graves back to the Macusa, nothing else counted but that: Mister Graves’s hurt, his pain. The beautiful thing shivering in pain in his lover’s arms. 

(Tucked away in the back of one of the official Macusa cars – because Apparition is a scattering of molecules in the best of times and no one wanted to stop Mister Graves’s heart with it – Ben talked to him, too: whenever Theseus’s face grew too gray and tired to say anything and the Aurors had to step in. He whispered soothing nonsense, and curses, and things he couldn’t remember. Something like _hold on Mister Graves, please,_ and, _I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry,_ and, _we’ll get that bastard, I swear, and I’ll make him swallow his own fucking balls, sir. I promise._ ) 

It was only once at the hospital – the operating theater’s white doors closing behind the gurney and Healer Greyson’s angry orders, Theseus sliding to the ground with his head in his hands like a wounded dog – it was only then it hit Ben. The words like gongs, drumming through his bones. 

_Mister Graves was Fae._

_He had broken dragonfly wings._

_He was dying._

He wasn’t the only one in the waiting room: the rest of the Aurors were there, too. Han crying snot and tears into Marconi’s shoulder, Heisenberg’s pumps clicking as she paced in front of the windows. Tina, clawing at her arms hard enough to rip through the fabric - eyes glued to the white doors like iron filings pulled by a magnet. 

By three a.m., Greyson stumbled back in the hallway, swaying on his feet. He peeled off his gloves, slowly, the white smeared with blood, and sat down to the offered cup of their bad coffee, and started talking, sparing them the effort of begging and coaxing. 

He spoke of Fae blood and mixed heritage, of the way wizards as clever and powerful as Percival could cast steel-hard glamors meant to last for years; of the time Mister Graves spent with iron-coated scorpion pins on his throat, to steel himself against the burning, to show the world no law of blood or or magic was going to hold him back; of the perfect absurdity of one of the Fae folk living in a city built on metal and exhaust and hot tar, a buzzing shrine to the gods of industry and human progress. 

_I told him it was madness -_ screamed _it at him, actually. It didn’t work, of course. You know how he is._

The Aurors nodded, and said nothing, because they did know how he was, and it hurt almost worse anything else up to that point. 

By the morning, Ben thought he was too exhausted and too carved out to feel more shame, more grief: the thought felt redundant, like those ridiculous tear-jerking cinematograph scenes, with heroines crying their kohl-rimmed eyes out over and over and over again. 

He was wrong. 

When Ben heard a scraping of running feet in the hallway around the corner, and saw Mister and Mrs Graves burst through the door – heads swiveling toward the only occupied bed of the intensive care ward as if pulled by a rope tied under their breasts – he felt ashamed, and felt like crying, just like those pale-faced heroines. He had to pin his hands under his thighs to keep himself from falling on his knees and asking for forgiveness. 

Mrs Graves was a beautiful, gray-haired lady - periwinkle eyes, a lean grace to her movements that made her lilac dress swish like a flower, and felt like the mold of Graves’s effortless elegance. She was human: but her husband wasn’t. 

Mister Arthur Graves’s face held no age, no wrinkles, nothing but clean-cut angles and graphite-dark hair and eyes the color of ripe hazelnuts - and grief. Time may not make fairies look old, but pain does. 

_My child,_ Ben and the Aurors heard him whisper - with a voice that rolled and curled like storm clouds, that spilled over with magic like blood pouring out of a wound. _My child, my beautiful child._

Discretely, waiting like awkward shadows at the door of the hospital room, they watched Mister Graves Senior bend over _their_ Mister Graves, and graze his cheek with long-nailed fingers. They watched as he held him when he whimpered in his sleep, the broken remains of his wings fluttering in agony under the sheets. They saw a fairy lord cry and press his forehead to his son’s; they heard their formidable boss call “Da, Da” in a voice as small as cracking twigs. 

That was enough for Ben. He pushed away from the wall, excused himself to his friends, and discretely ran all the way to the restrooms, throwing up all that bad coffee in the toilet. 

_It’s our youngest, you see_ , Mrs Graves told them later - accepting graciously one of the brownies Queenie’s no-maj boy prepared for them, and not touching it. She was brittle around the edges, eyes pinched as if each breath hurt, but she was holding it together: hurting the way of humans, not of fairies, clinging desperately to brownies and conversation and a hundred stupidly mundane things. 

_Our little Percival. He’s always been so clever, so ambitious - so sure the world will change shape under his fingertips just to please him. And most of the times, it does. But he’s still so young - barely forty years old._

At that, Ben shared a look with the others - with Han’s tear-flushed face, with Tina. He saw the shadow of his own suspicion in her eyes, and felt his shoulders stiffen, the air crushed out of his lungs, inch by inch. 

There was a chapter about fairy ages and life expectancy, in _Fairies: Society and Anatomy of the Little Folk_. One Ben really didn’t want to remember. 

_I’m – I’m not sure I got it right, ma’am,_ Marconi cut in, face gradually losing color. _I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mister Graves is one of the handsomest man I’ve ever met, but forty is not young._

Mrs Graves trembled - a long, terrible shiver, rippling through her all the way from her silk pumps to the tip of her fingers, nails clicking softly against the untouched plate. 

She lifted horrified eyes into Marconi’s face. 

_Sir, my son is Half-fae,_ Mrs Graves said, in a tone that told them Mister Graves’s velvet-deadly voice didn’t come from his fairy heritage at all _. Forty may be a respectably mature age for a human, but is nothing for the Folk. Percival is barely an adult at all._ She gasped. _He’s barely out of boyhood._

Ben’s mouth filled with ash. For a terrible moment, he felt sure he was going to choke to death on it. 

_You mean-_

Mrs Graves turned her blue eyes to him. 

_Yes, sir - I mean that in human years, your Head Auror is a twenty years old boy._

Ben was still choking. The words poured over him, seeped into his skin - swelled like ice. It made sense, and it didn’t. Because Percival Graves was one of the most dangerous, knowledgeable, ruthless son of a bitch he had ever had the pleasure to know, because he was his damn mentor, because he had saved their asses countless times and taught them everything they knew. Because they- 

-Because they left him alone. They didn’t see he had been swapped with a sociopath, who locked him in an underground cell and tore his wings apart. They abandoned him, left him in the dark, with no company but his tortured thoughts. 

_And he was a boy._

_They left a boy to die alone in a cell._

Ben didn’t faint like a swooning Victorian lady then, but it was a close thing. Marconi turned a lizard-like shade of green. Han burst into tears, again, and hard enough to give herself raccoon-like black smears around her eyes, the kind of crying that looked more like drowning than anything else. 

Ben didn’t dare to look at Tina. 

But later, when the two of them moved to the one-way glass looking on Mister Graves’s room, when they stood there counting the bruises and cuts on the body under the sheet, calmly taking stock of their sins, Tina latched on him as if he were the last solid thing left in the world, and he held her up without saying anything. 

*** 

As it turned out, Ben was right. Three weeks later Mister Graves - because after a couple of sleepless nights spent staring up at the tidy row of books borrowed from his boss, Ben had decided that despite the new urge of fierce protectiveness he was always going to call him Mister Graves - stalked through the Auror Office doors with a fresh glamour wrapped around him and his left arm in a sling. And got almost immediately pissed. 

To be fair, Ben and the rest of them were not being nearly as subtle as they would have liked to be. _Keeping an eye on Mister Graves_ seemed to have translated into hovering anxiously never more than five feet away from him, stumbling over themselves to fetch him coffee and reports so he didn’t have to get up, blabbering about how happy they’d be to take care of his paperwork in their spare time. On the first day, Han asked him how he felt no less than three times a hour; the first time he accompanied him on a routine patrol at the docks, Marconi nearly gave himself a heart attack when he lost sight of his boss for three minutes - voice choked with tears of relief when he rushed around a corner and found Mister Graves chomping down a hot dog he had gotten at a nearby stall. Tina literally jumped - no, _pounced_ \- on every official or clerk coming to the office to speak with Graves, baring her teeth: offensive magic twirling around her like an approaching hurricane. Every time, Mister Graves had to physically walk out of his office, eyebrows scrunched together and muttering about gratuitous delays in his schedule, to personally recognize the visitor and shoo Tina away. 

“Quit it, Goldstein - if playing bodyguard is your new trick to skip the report on Madame Beauregard’s boggart, I swear you it’s not going to work”. 

And Ben, well - Ben wasn’t doing much better than any of them. He would find myself staring at Mister Graves as he illustrated him a new case, taking in the delicateness of bones he didn’t bother to hide anymore, the spasm of pain which crossed his face every time his stunned wings rubbed against the thick fabric of his jackets, and would burn with the feeling he got looking at his sisters and brothers - the fierce urge to wrap him in his arms and tear through the throat of anyone coming too close. 

For now, he managed not to give in to that urge. 

Of course, on those occasions Ben had absolutely no idea what they just talked about. And he usually got a flying report magicked to smack him on the head for his troubles. 

_You’ve found out about Percival’s age,_ Theseus Scamander blurted out one afternoon, sliding nonchalantly to Ben’s side as they waited in the cafeteria line. Ben opened his mouth, closed it, tried again, but it had absolutely not been a question. _His Fae heritage, his parents - all that. Correct?_

Theseus was tall and imposing, with a boyish smirk and warm green-gray eyes which had you desire his approval to the point of aching with it - which made keeping secrets from him nearly as hard as keeping them from Ben’s boss. Secretly, he put the two of them in the top ten of the Most Terrifying Couples of The Century, right after his parents. 

He didn’t even try to deny. 

_Correct, sir._

_Mh. And now you all feel compelled to fuss over him like a dozen anxious big botrhers and sisters. Probably find him pretty adorable, too._

Again, not a question. 

_Yes, sir._

_Mh._ Theseus cracked one of his trademark smile, still beautiful despite the tired shadows under his eyes - mementos of a month spent holding your ailing lover’s hand while he lied in a hospital bed. He ordered his tea, flicking his eyes back to Ben. 

_I understand, Delgado. I may even approve, and sure I sympathize. Hell, I spent a good year of the War doing pretty much the same thing._ The lines around his lips tightened. _But he’s going to find out about it. Hiding secrets from Percival is like hiding coffee or tailored waistcoats - absolutely useless. He’s going to find out, and then he’s going to be-_

_Pissed. I know._

_More like fucking furious._ Skinning-enemies-alive _kind of furious. It’s not pretty, trust me._

They took their trays. Ben went through the motion in autopilot, grabbing a lumpy pastrami sandwich to put beside his coffee, handing a handful of crumpled bills to the cashier, counting breaths as he worked out a suitable reply. Theseus waited for it, patiently. He took up his own tray, and walked Ben to his favorite corner table. 

_. Sir,_ Ben said, suddenly, _with all due respect, I don’t - I don’t think I can stop. I know we’re in for the whoop-ass of our lives, but - I can’t stop worrying. Not yet. I don’t think any of us can._

He realized his legs had turned rubbery. He sat down in one of the chairs, heavily, seeing again that frail body in the bed, Mrs Graves’s eyes burning into his. He’s my baby, Mister Delgado. 

Theseus stopped by his side - still standing. 

_I’m not saying you should stop. And, Delgado?_

Ben lifted his head. The tell-tale thud of migraine was already building between his eyes. _Yes?_

_Don’t beat yourself too much about this,_ Theseus said - voice growing low, tired. Human. _You didn’t see it, but neither did anyone else. Neither did I._

Ben studied the white-knuckles hands gripping Theseus’s tray, a thin layer of years and sleepless night showing through Auror Scamander’s golden beauty. Then he nodded, because at the moment, he didn’t trust his voice one bit. 

_I’ll try, sir._

*** 

Two weeks later, Ben stumbled through the door to find Han telling him he was expected in Graves’s office, and he knew the promised whoop-ass had come. As he crossed the room, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in his horrible green-blue tie, he caught sight of Tina nodding to him. Farewell to a comrade on his way to the gallows. 

He suddenly, genuinely regretted choosing that tie. He had a feeling it was so ugly it would make Mister Graves even _angrier_. 

He barely had the time to rap at the door. A voice spilled from the other side of it - crisp and impatient. 

“Come in, Ben.” 

_Yeah. This morning is just getting better and better._

Ben exhaled a breath, and pushed the door open. 

Mister Graves was standing, leaning gracefully against the edge of his desk \- legs crossed at the ankle, tidy stacks of reports and papers and folders surrounding him like rows of a papery army. Never a man to delude himself, on his first day back Graves had explained that since they had learned about his Fae heritage, he would stop hiding it: the well-crafted glamour he wore now hid the outline of his wings, the mother-of-pearl nails – but it did nothing to dull the sharp curve of his ears, the otherworldly glow of his skin. His eyes were still dark, and yet the color looked richer, profoundly inhuman: coffee, yes, but warm with gold and a smear of red, like a drop of blood melting in your morning cup. 

People were having an even harder time than usual looking him in the eyes without blushing like virgin maidens. Ben suspected the raven-wing-blue three-piece was meant to show those upsetting eyes off, too. 

Right now, though, there was nothing soft or seductive in Mister Graves’s pose. He was scowling, arms crossed, and the air pulsed with a faint silver magic that told Ben just how bad his boss wanted to kick his ass all the way to the moon and back. 

In that moment, he was one hundred percent Percival Graves, Auror boss and badass mentor. The two images, that of Director Graves and of the fragile Fae prince still clashed, swapping places again and again with the force of a slap, but Ben was working it out: he hoped one day they’d find a way to coexist, and come to mean the same thing. 

“Stop smiling like a goon,” Mister Graves snapped. “I assure you there is nothing to smile about. And close the door.” 

Ben obeyed. The door locked with a soft, ominous click. 

He cleared his throat, fumbling for an elegant way to put it. 

“Sir, err. Are you going to murder me?” 

Mister Graves gave him a look, and snarled. Given his tiny Fae fangs, it was pretty impressive. “Considering the absolute lack of improvement in your fashion style over the years I spent tutoring you, I probably should.” He tilted his head. “But no, I’m not going to murder you, Delgado. But I think you know why I called you here.” 

Eyes of coffee and blood flicked to him, pinning him to the office wall like a butterfly speared to corkboard. After a semi-valiant attempt at meeting his gaze, Ben gave up and stared down at the tip of his shoes. 

“Yes, sir,” he said, simply. 

Mister Graves heaved a sigh. Silence swelled, the ticking of the Bakelite clock on the wall tallying the space between Ben’s heartbeats. He felt Mister Graves grab that silence, letting it grow under his touch as the cogs in his mind twirled and worked through problems, and then he felt him cut through it like silk thread. 

“You talked with my parents,” Graves said. “Back at the hospital, I presume \- since one of the first thing I remember from my recovery is you and Goldstein patting at my hand like a couple of damned wet-nurses. They told you of my heritage. And of my real age.” 

Mister Graves stopped. Ben’s skin was buzzing with curiosity, with ache, with the complicated tangle of emotions he had choked on since that day with Mrs Graves and the brownies, but he kept his eyes fixed on his feet. 

“Ben, look at me while I prepare to chew you out.” A pause.“Please.” 

The _please_ did the trick. When Ben looked up at him, there was real apprehension on Mister Graves’s face - a shiver of uncertainty. It was a look he could picture on his little brother’s face, one he saw reflected on his own features every time he shaved, and Ben had the sudden certainty this was Mister Graves’s gift to him: a sneak peek at the young man under the silk and the power, at the strange youth of his mixed blood. 

Mister Graves gave a small, grim smile: then he shrugged, like a bird ruffling his feathers against rain, and the boy disappeared back into the man as if he had never been there. 

“I understand your concerns,” he said, quietly. “Believe me, I do. But to answer the question which is practically glowing in neon letters over your head, Ben – no, I don’t feel like a twenty year-old. I’m not a forty-year-old man, either. I’m both and neither, and I can be wise as my mother’s ancestors and Moody as my father’s people. And yes, you’re all allowed to get a headache from the sheer messiness of it.”Mister Graves arched an eyebrow. “What you’re _not_ allowed to do, though, is fretting on me as if you were scared I would tumble to my death while tying my shoes. I’m a young half-Fae, not stupid.” 

Despite the good three inches he had on his boss, Ben shrank in his suit. “Sir-” 

“This is still the phase where I roast you and you keep your mouth shut, Ben,” Mister Graves cut him off, coming to stop in front of him. “I consider you one of my most promising Aurors, and a friend, and I could not ask for a better squad of officers, no matter what you think about the whole Grindelwald fiasco. But I can’t compromise on this. If any of you feel unable to treat me as your leader, to take me seriously and refrain from fretting whenever we encounter a mildly dangerous situation, then we can no longer work as a squad. In case any of your companions feels this way, they can be sure I’ll provide them with an enthusiastic presentation letter that would open them any precinct in the country – but they won’t work here. Not with me. Have I made myself clear?” 

Silence. A sound like a muffled gasp came from door - old wood creaking, maybe, or Ben’s own blood whooshing in and out of his temples. A sudden surge of alarm rushed through his body, white-hot. _Panic_. The thought of leaving this place, of leaving Han with her laugh and the smears of nail polish on her reports, of leaving Tina and the old green-leather coach in the break room, of leaving his _boss_ – it filled him with pure, unadulterated panic. The only other time Ben had felt something like that he was three, and was leaving the whitewashed walls and red flowers of the house he was born in, in Mexico. 

_Leaving home._

“Sir,” he blabbered. “I - I swear, none of us meant any disrespect. And sure as hell none of us wants to leave the precinct, o thinks you’re not suited-” Ben’s words tangled on his tongue like a fur ball. He tugged at his hair, frustrated. “We just, I mean - _shit_. Shit. We fucked up real bad, didn’t we?” 

“Crudely put, but I appreciate the sincerity,” Mister Graves replied. “Dammit, Ben, remind me to dust off your manners lessons before I bring you to the next Macusa gala, okay?” 

Ben nodded numbly. The thundering pulse was making it hard to think; it started to slow down only when Mister Graves tapped at his arm, gently. 

“Delgado, listen to me, and listen closely. I’m not kicking out anyone - and to use your words, you didn’t fuck up nearly as bad as you think. So take a _breath_ , before you turn any more purple.” The gentle tap turned into a not-so-gentle smack on the back of Ben’s head. “But this fretting frenzy has to stop, and stop _now_. I worked Theseus fucking Scamander out of it. Don’t think you and the other pups stand any chance.” 

“How… how did you do that?” 

“I challenged him to duel and magic-slammed him into a damn three. He shed pine needles like a forest sprite for three months.” Mister Graves winked, subtly suggesting that despite the lack of pine trees in New York, he could still come up with equally efficient alternatives. 

A giggle escaped the office door. This time, it didn’t sound at all like creaking wood. The following stomping and shushing sounded even more suspect. 

Mister Graves rolled his otherworldly eyes, once - and snapped his fingers. 

The office door burst open, spilling a steady stream of surprised Aurors onto the Persian carpet. Tina and Han managed not to fall all the way, grabbing at the door jamb, but poor Marconi went down with a cartoon-ish “hoof!” 

Several pairs of guilty eyes snagged on Mister Graves. 

“Get in, the whole lot of you,” he growled, good-naturedly. “I’m confident you’ve heard enough of our _private_ meeting anyway, haven’t you?” 

Marconi scrambled to his feet with a mumbled “Yes sir”. More Aurors peered from the doorway, and half the department suddenly shuffled into the office \- hands wriggling their hats, faces pale and worried and pinched and beet-red. 

“Good,” Mister Graves commented tartly – cutting off the mumbling of excuses before it had chance to grow. 

“First of all, gentlemen, ladies - if you have intention to try your hand at a career in thievery or espionage, I have terrible news for you, because that was the most pitiful attempt at eavesdropping I’ve ever witnessed. Second of all…” 

He held up one hand - leveling his gaze at each of them like the barrel of a gun. 

“…I’m asking you the same thing I just asked our estimated Delgado: to tell me if you’re ready to stop this ridiculousness, and go back to treat me as your leader and your senior officer. Which means,” - his index finger slashed out, pointing at Han - “no more getting me strawberry cupcakes and urging me to eat them as if I were a starved Victorian street urchin,” - the finger moved to Marconi - “no more lifting me off my damn feet every time I’m about to step into a puddle,” - Mister Graves turned, finger outstretched towards Tina and Ben - “and no more fussing, fretting, and treating me like I’m made of glass. Because I’m _not_ , pups.” 

People shuffled uneasily. Many feet were being studied extensively. Marconi and Han cast each other vitriol-scorching glares, silently accusing each other. Tina was standing to the side, skin still too pale and face still too fierce, but when Ben managed to meet her gaze, he saw something familiar there. _Relief_. 

In a twisted, profoundly Auror-ish way, having Graves chewing them out was the most comforting thing that had happened since that cold January afternoon at the warehouse. 

“... Second of all,” their boss went on, voice slower, softer. “I’ll give you the choice I just presented Ben with: you can come forward, tell me you don’t judge me fit anymore, and be sure I’ll give you a remarkable presentation letter and my besyt wishes for your future life. Or, you can promise me you will treat me like your partner, your leader, and stay here as a member of the New York Auror Precinct - which is of course the sharpest and the best the Macusa Law Enforcement Department has ever seen.” 

Mister Graves let his eyes glide from one to the other - taking them in, alight with approval. They all saw themselves reflected in his gaze, and saw the best version of themselves, too. 

“I will not lie: I do hope you will all choose the second option.” They saw him swallow. “You’re my squad. I wouldn’t change one thing about it. So I ask you to give me the chance to lead you, gentlemen. Give me the chance to protect you, and be protected by you, and if it comes to it, give my life for you and this sprawling bitch of a city you’re helping me to watch over.” 

Mister Graves lifted one arm, letting the loose cuff of his shirt fall back. Under the office lights, a latticework of scars shone off his wrists. 

“Because I already nearly did, and I would do it a million times more.” 

A breath of silence. At the center of it, Mister Graves stood slight and sharp under the lights, wearing his scars like silver jewelry. Ben knew there were other scars he could have shown them, tucked away the fabric of his shirt and never fully healed. The thought tore a pang out of his heart, like a soldier jumping to attention. 

“So, gentlemen, ladies?” Mister Graves asked, for the last time. “Are you with me?” 

The Aurors shared looks: some jittery, some veiled with pain, some panicky and human and a little wild. Then a collective nod rippled down their line, chins bobbing in seamless succession. 

Marconi was the first to speak. 

“Damn, boss,” he mumbled. “Of course we are in. We don’t want any other boss in the whole world, Fae child or not.” 

Mister Graves’s face showed nothing. “Are you talking for everyone, Jim?” 

More nodding, a collection of blonde red raven-haired heads going up and down like buoys. It made Mister Graves sigh – and smile a real smile. 

“Excellent, then. Jim, thank you, and please, stop torturing your hat - wriggle it a bit more with those ham-sized paws of yours and the poor thing will come to life and ask for mercy.” 

Marconi was smiling back at him. His smirk showed way too many teeth. 

“Sir – before we go back to work and leave you to your stuff, we kind of have a request. Just a teeny-tiny one. Do I have permission to speak freely?” 

Mister Graves cocked his head, nodded. 

“Permission granted.” 

“When we track down that fancy Krunk fucker,” Marconi said, still smiling a pouncing wolf’s smile, “We’d really, really like to be the ones who throw him in the deepest piss-smelling shithole in this building, and never let him out. You think it could be arranged, boss?” 

When he saw the expression flickering across Mister Graves’s face, Ben wanted to laugh. 

_The hunt is on._


End file.
